The Council of Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s Regional
Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS), at its 22ndsession in
Uzbekistan’s capital, Tashkent, last week, reached agreement on new measures to
fight cyber terrorism.

During its meeting, the member-states of the RATS Council of Shanghai
Cooperation Organization (SCO), including Russia, China, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, signed agreements on urgent measures “to
combat the use or potential use of computer networks for terrorist, separatist
and extremist ends.”

In the past few years, internet security has been raised at every SCO
meeting, in the light of events in the Middle East and North Africa that
heightened interest in cyber threats even further. So far, in this area, every
SCO country has been acting on the basis of its own laws and capabilities, with
each member-state having a specialised cyber security unit dedicated to this
threat. But now under the new agreements signed by the council in Tashkent, the
RATS can provide legal guidance and make recommendations to enforce transnational
standards.

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The council also ratified a decision to coordinate the efforts of
competent agencies working to counteract potential new manifestations of a
terrorist, separatist and extremist nature across the SCO and also agreed to
create an Expert Group of the member-states’ border agencies. It also approved
a strategy for investigating and cutting off the financing of terrorist,
separatist and extremist activity through illegal drug-trafficking and set up a
mechanism to coordinate activities of relevant competent authorities to provide
security for large international events.

The council approved Chinese representative Zhang Sinfen as Director of
the Executive Committee of the SCO’s RATS, replacing the Kazakh representative
Lieutenant-General Jenisbek Jumanbekov. The RATS is composed of the council, a
decision-making body and the Executive Committee, a routine executive body,
which was created on January 1, 2004, in Tashkent, in accordance with the
regional group’s security priorities to fight terrorism, separatism and
extremism. It also coordinates close cooperation among special agencies of the
member-states of the SCO to effectively meet the challenges of terrorism,
separatism and extremism, in the region through “early warning and prevention
measures.”

After the council’s meeting in Tashkent last week, the First Deputy
Director of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Sergei Smirnov told
reporters that the special agencies of the SCO member-countries will establish
a Special Centre to fight the latest threats.

“The centre will deal with responding to the threats of extremism,
terrorism and separatism and will also fight drug- trafficking and ensure
information security,” Smirnov said. He added that certain difficulties might
arise while the centre is being established, but they will be resolved along
the way.

“Firstly, at least four SCO members-states have their own specialized
agencies against drug- trafficking and the difficulty here will be to devolve
power,” Smirnov stressed.

“I think that we will follow the track of establishing specialised
groups in the framework of the SCO regional anti-terrorist body, which is
functioning already in Tashkent and then we will resolve occurring issues
within these specialized groups,” he said.

“It is necessary to apply maximum efforts to implement the
2013-2015 programme for combating terrorism, separatism and extremism,” Smirnov
said in his speech at the council’s meeting. In particular, he blamed the
growing income divide between rich and poor nations for “rising terrorist
activity on both the international and regional levels.”

Smirnov also said that the SCO regional security group based in Chinese
capital should develop its own information security system as part of an
SCO threat prevention centre, taking into account the special factors in each
member-country.

In this backdrop, it may be recalled that last June speaking at a SCO
meeting in Beijing Russian President Vladimir Putin had proposed to establish
an anti-terrorism centre within the SCO. “We can achieve success in this
direction by establishing a universal centre to counter terrorism, drug-
trafficking and organized crime in the SCO,” Putin had said.

Established in 2001, the SCO includes Russia, China, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as members. India, Afghanistan, Iran,
Mongolia and Pakistan have observer status, while Belarus, Sri Lanka and Turkey
participate in the SCO meetings as dialogue partners.

Recently, Russia has repeatedly called on observer countries in the SCO
to strengthen anti-terror cooperation to ensure regional security. In reply to
these calls by Russia, India has always assured the SCO its greater involvement
which might even include participation in the regional security group’s
counter-terror war games, a diplomatic source, who preferred not to be
identified, said in Moscow.

India has sought the full membership of the SCO to play a more vigorous
role in the activities of the regional security group. Russia has always
expressed its support to India for its full membership.

“The Russian side reiterated its support to India’s intention to join
the SCO as a full-fledged member and stood for joint efforts with other SCO
members to accelerate the process of India's entry into the Organization,” the
joint statement issued after 13th India-Russia summit in New Delhi
said on December, 2012.

So far as the anti-terrorism fight in the region is concerned, India has
always insisted on the need for greater cooperation between India and the RATS,
which regularly conducts anti-terrorism military exercises. India considers
RATS as an effective forum to monitor trends in radical Islamic organisations
and movements, in the region, because of its sheer proximity to Afghanistan.

India has long been a victim of terrorism emanating from the terrorist
bases in the region and has always advocated for the need of a stronger resolve
and committed actions to fight the scourge of terrorism.

Sources said even if India remained an observer-member for some time, it
was keen to step up its involvement in the SCO to contribute more meaningfully
in the fight against the threats of terrorism, including cyber terrorism
through its closer engagement with the RATS.